The insider claims that Ubisoft's goal is to take advantage of the decline in Apex's popularity and occupy the vacated niche. This contradicts Ubisoft's own internal research, which discussed the question “what comes next after battle royales?” and noted a decline in interest in the genre.
EA has also acknowledged that Apex Legends no longer generates the expected revenue. The company is preparing a major update called Apex Legends 2.0. Ubisoft, on the other hand, believes that there is still interest in the genre.
This is not the company's first attempt—in 2020, Ubisoft launched Hyper Scape, but the project was shut down after a year and a half. Since then, about a dozen other battle royales at various stages have been canceled within the company.
Amid general instability within Ubisoft (including the recent plunge of its stock to a 12-year low and collaboration with Tencent), launching an Apex clone could be another risky bet.
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Cover author: Respawn. Cover source: Insider Gaming